Zhōngbiān fēnbié lùn shū 中邊分別論疏
Commentary on the Treatise Distinguishing the Middle from the Extremes by 元曉 (Yuánxiǎo / Wǒnhyo, 撰)
About the work
A surviving fragment — only juǎn 3 of the original four — of 元曉’s commentary on the Madhyāntavibhāga. Significantly, the catalog title (Zhōngbiān fēnbié lùn shū) tracks Paramārtha’s earlier translation KR6n0071 (T31n1599) rather than 玄奘’s 661 Biàn zhōngbiān lùn (KR6n0072, T31n1600). This indicates the work was composed using or with reference to the Paramārtha translation, even though Wǒnhyo would have had access to Xuánzàng’s later translation as well. Preserved in the Xuzangjing (X48n0797).
Structural Division
CANWWW does not assign internal structure for X48n0797 (it is in the supplement, not the main Taishō). The surviving juǎn 3 covers the duìzhì 對治 / Pratipakṣa-bhāvanā chapter — the antidotes-cultivation chapter (chapter 4 of the Madhyāntavibhāga) — analysing the thirty-seven bodhipakṣya-dharmāḥ (the conventional Buddhist meditative apparatus of the four mindfulnesses, four right efforts, four supernormal bases, five faculties, five powers, seven factors of awakening, and the eightfold path) through a six-fold method (列名、釋義、出體性、顯明位地、說次第、辨諸門).
Abstract
元曉 (Wǒnhyo, 617–686), the most influential pre-modern Korean Buddhist philosopher, composed commentaries on most of the foundational Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha treatises (cf. KR6o0101 Qǐxìn lùn shū, KR6o0104 Dàshèng qǐxìn lùn biéjì); the Madhyāntavibhāga commentary belongs to the same systematic project. The dating window adopted (650–686) covers Wǒnhyo’s productive teaching period.
The fragment that survives is a sophisticated philosophical exposition: Wǒnhyo treats the antidotes systematically through his characteristic six-fold analytical method (liù mén) — naming, semantic analysis, identification of substantive content, exposition of stage-correspondence, exposition of sequence, distinction of various doctrinal categories. This is the same method Wǒnhyo applies in his other commentaries.
The lost juǎn 1, 2, and 4 are referenced in the Korean Hae-dong gosŭng-jŏn 海東高僧傳 and other Korean Buddhist catalogs; the sole surviving juǎn 3 is the principal extant witness to Wǒnhyo’s Madhyāntavibhāga exegesis.
The work survives only because of its preservation in Korea (transmitted there from Wǒnhyo’s circle) and its eventual incorporation into the Xuzangjing in the early twentieth century from Korean and Japanese manuscript sources.
Translations and research
- Buswell, Robert E. Jr. Cultivating Original Enlightenment: Wǒnhyo’s Exposition of the Vajrasamādhi-Sūtra. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2007. (Comparative reference to Wǒnhyo’s commentarial method.)
- Park Sung-bae 朴性培. One Korean’s Approach to Buddhism: The Mom/Momjit Paradigm. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009.
- Wǒnhyo Sŏnsa chŏnsŏ 元曉聖師全書 (Collected works of Wǒnhyo). Seoul: Pojinjae, 1987.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠. Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.